


Inundation

by lilacsigil



Category: Firefly
Genre: Australian Aboriginal Mythology, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-08
Updated: 2011-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-14 14:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacsigil/pseuds/lilacsigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When knowledge is power, it's important to keep knowledge controlled. Shepherd Book is here to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inundation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gehayi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gehayi/gifts).



> Set after the war and shortly before the start of the series. Auntie Kath is a tribute to Auntie Kath Possum, a Kurnai elder who was a storyteller at my local library when I was in primary school. The version of the Tiddalik story told here is specific to the Kurnai people who originated it - it's not the only version nor even necessarily the original one. Thanks to st_aurafina for beta reading.

Derrial Book's people were known as Shepherds, but they were far from the only holy people, teachers and elders to have come from Earth-That-Was to the far reaches of space. Unfortunately, during the last stages of the war, masquerading as a priest or priestess of some kind was a favourite tactic of the Brown Coat sneak-bombers: – it gave them access to important people, to large gatherings, to hospitals and schools, all euphemistically described as "high impact targets". The compulsory identification and registration of all religions and religious officials had soon followed, and although the war was well and truly over now, Book had never known a bureaucracy to give up control of something that had finally fallen within its reach.

The Alliance was deliberately neutral but respectful on the matter of religion – nine varieties of Shepherds, Rabbis and Imams, several different groups of Buddhist priests and nuns, the highly organised Machine Animists, and a number of Hindu sects were recognised and registered immediately – and the Alliance gave registered religious officials the leeway to which they had been accustomed before the war. They could still visit the sick, hold their services, comfort the dying and travel between holy places freely without the need for onerous permits and visas. Unfortunately, the same freedoms had not been granted to many of the less bureaucratic religions: some were confined to a single planet and had never heard of the requirements; others had been entirely overlooked because they did not, on the surface, resemble what the Alliance recognised as a religion. Shepherd Book, as an appropriately registered official of an appropriately registered religion, was one of many trying to change the situation. In the company of Imam Hussein and Không Bhikkhuni – all three of them rather worldly for their respective religions, in Book's opinion – he was travelling from one call for help to the next, trying to register the forgotten and overlooked religions with the Alliance. It had not been as straightforward as he expected.

"Does your religion have a name?" Book asked the elderly woman, checking his data recorder. Despite the intense heat, she had refused to sit under the tall eucalyptus that offered shade, and instead sat half-sheltered by a scrubby bush with sharp leaves. Book felt sweat soak into his hair and trickle down his temple.

She shook her head.

"C'mon, Auntie Kath," moaned the teenage girl who sat with her. "He's trying to help. If we want to get you off-planet to see Kamilla before she kicks it, you've got to co-operate."

Kath gave the girl a slow sideways glance. "He starts asking the right questions, Lee, I'll answer them."

"I'm sorry," Book said in his most sincere, gentle voice. "Your religion is very different from mine, and I don't know the right questions to ask."

"The whitefellas who used to study us, back on Earth-That-Was, they'd ask the same things. Shepherds, too."

"That was a very long time ago."

"We've got long memories. So's your holy book."

"You've read the Bible?" Book was surprised – he'd been under the impression that the people of the Yarram Yarram valley on Braeel-nrung must deliberately avoided other religions, hence their omission in the Alliance records.

"I've read a lot of things."

"Auntie Kath used to be a schoolteacher," Lee explained. "She's always at me to read something."

"I would have liked to have been a teacher." Book had even begun training to teach, before he was recruited for other work, work he thought more important at the time.

Kath brightened at this. "You have plenty to teach. All us old people do."

"Are you saying that all of the elders are religious figures for your people?" Book was hoping this was not the case – the Alliance would not accept that rationale for registering Kath so that she could travel easily.

Kath shook her head. "All the old people are storytellers. Not the same thing. Even Lee can tell you a story."

Lee rolled her eyes, and, unfortunately for her, Auntie Kath saw the expression.

Book tried to keep them on track. "But Lee is not a religious authority."

"No. But the few things she knows, outsiders can know." Kath still had her ferocious glare on Lee, who was looking at the ground and poking at a patch of grass with her toe. "Tell him a story, Lee, and he'll see the difference."

"But Auntie Kath –" Lee didn't bother with more than a cursory protest. "Okay. Um, pretty much everyone knows this story. Even some off-worlders. But it's our story.

"Back in the Dreamtime – that's when everything was being made – there was a frog, Tiddalik. He was a giant frog, and a mean bugger, too. The weather got hot and he was thirsty, so he started to drink. He drank up the billabong where he lived, and swelled up to a huge size, but that wasn't enough. So he drank up the river, then all the lakes and all the rivers, until there was no fresh water in the whole world. Tiddalik was a giant, full of all the water.

"All the animals were dying of thirst, and all the trees and plants, too. The animals went to Tiddalik to beg him, "Please let us have some water." But Tiddalik didn't even reply. He just sat there, holding all the water.

"Narrot, the wombat – actually, we don't have those now, but they were sort of like fat little dogs, I think? But with claws and more like kangaroos? They dug in the dirt and they were very wise. Anyway, Narrot had the idea that if they did something really funny and made Tiddalik laugh, he'd release all the water."

Book nodded. "I think I have heard this. There are similar myths in several cultures, about having to make a withdrawn god or goddess laugh to return something valuable to the earth."

"Oh, good. The Shepherd knows it, Auntie Kath, can I stop?"

Kath just waited, and Lee sighed then continued. "Okay. So the kangaroo – you saw them getting shooed away from the landing pad on your way in, right? – jumps around in the air, and the emu dances, and they all do funny things, but Tiddalik is so mean he doesn't laugh at all. Finally, the eel shows up and tries to do a dance standing on his nose, but he gets himself tied in a knot. He wriggles and wriggles but he can't untie himself. Now that's funny to a mean old frog. Tiddalik laughs and laughs, and all the water comes flooding right out of him."

"So the land is restored," Book finished, "And the animals and plants all have plenty to drink."

Lee nodded, but Auntie Kath slapped her on the thigh. "No. Anyone can tell that story, and everyone does. That's not the story from our place."

Kath leaned forward, and Book found himself doing the same to catch her words.

"Some people say Tiddalik turned to stone, or turned inside out, and that was the end of him. Maybe that's how it happened in other places, with other frogs, but not for us. We don't know what happened to him, because when he released all that water, it made a huge flood. All the men and women were drowning in the water. Borun the pelican, who made the Kurnai people with his wife, swooped down and carried all that he could find to safety, and those are our ancestors. And when the floods settled, that was our new home, all islands and rivers, all different.

Kath put a hand on Book's arm. "You get the water, but it means disaster. Change hurts."

"Yes," Book agreed, "The war has –"

"There's so much hidden, Shepherd. It's all being held back. The deluge will come, and it will drown many. Not even Tiddalik can hold it all in forever."

Book pulled his arm back from her touch. Lee was silent.

"I'll recommend you for registration," Book said, retreating into his regulations. He had no doubt that Kath had the ways of a priestess, enough for him to make a report, but no idea what to make of her words. "I hope you get to Whitefall in time."

Kath seemed satisfied with this, and let Lee help her to her feet. "Thank you, Shepherd. If you and I don't see that day of flood, Lee might, or her grandkids. Take care of yourself."

Book shut off his data recorder and clambered to his feet, shoes slipping on the hard-packed ground. The sun was ferocious through the scrappy leaves of the trees. He was over-heated and his head hurt, and he didn't want to think about the intersection of politics and religion for another second.

Kath and Lee made their way back down the hill, and Book stood looking after them. His holy book had a destructive flood, too, and a bird as a symbol, but he had the feeling that Kath was talking about something else entirely. That was not his business, not any more. He followed the women down the hill, singing quietly to himself, more in hope than in faith.

"...He leadeth me, the quiet waters by."


End file.
